Retribution
by whitesakura
Summary: Hephaistion thinks there is such a thing as divine judgment. Contains Hephaistion&Alexander, Alexander&Bagoas.


Retribution

The first thing you killed was not the stag or boar on the hunt as a child, nor the man you slew years later as a nervous adolescent despite your father's training. It was just a little thing, and now it is a murky little memory that comes into your mind at the most strangest of times. Sometimes you can hear the soft meow coming from nowhere and everywhere out on the field, when your horse plods wearily on with the rest of Alexander's dusty train. Sometimes the wet brush of fur tingles the back of your hand, softer than cold pinpricks but just as electric. You did not grow up in Sparta, but you know well that only the strong survive. The little runt, discarded by mother and brethren is malformed and weak. The kitchen slave whom you've made friends with kicks it out the doorstep while he discusses the perfect time to pick olives. It yowls sharply but you look away. It is left in the nearby brush, under the mercy of the Gods and the wide sky like unwanted children who are abandoned by prostitutes painted more gaudily than the columns of a temple.

You go out into the countryside, seeking amusement.

Hours later you wander back the long way, around the pond towards home when it begins to rain. As you pass, it brushes against your leg and you reach down automatically to shoo it away when it nuzzles against you. You caress it absently with just the back of your fingertips, but when you leave it starts after you, calling like a lost child. After a few paces it stops and retreats, away from the rain and your cruelty, back into the undergrowth. In the morning, you find it dead, lying awkwardly with its limbs flung out like a hare in mid-flight taken down by the arrow. You bury its cold body under a tree with red leaves.

"Hephaistion, have you ever been unkind?" Alexander asks, his eyes bright with amusement. You startle from your thoughts. He is sitting. His hand drums impatiently on the scrolls lying on top of the table, leaving behind the whorls of his fingerprints in the not-yet dried ink.

"I've killed, just as you have," You say to Alexander with a raised eyebrow. You surreptitiously take a sip of wine from his cup, turning the goblet around so your lips will caress the spot his once kissed. Alexander's eyes flash but he says nothing, merely moves the scrolls aside to dry.

"Of course," Alexander says after a long pause. You put down Alexander's cup, slide it slowly forward with one finger. Just as nonchalantly, Alexander takes the goblet. "Bringing death to another is certainly baleful, but I meant unkind in realms other than war." Alexander's fingers play with the place your mouth has lingered, smoothing over the metal over and over again as if he can wear a groove in it. He brings the cup to his lips and your shoulders relax in relief and joy.

You check the portal to the room. There is no one passing by. You lean against Alexander's table with your thigh. In Greece your skin would have felt the wood press back underneath your brief robes, but it is Persia, a different dress and a different world. A different time and place. You watch Alexander carefully. He is not as eager as he once was. You never know when what is left of it will die. "I've been unkind."

Alexander laughs. "Come now, Hephaistion. You even defend," Alexander makes a angry gesture and swallows the rest of his alcohol. "I don't understand you."

"He spoke out of turn. But it would be best to be cautious."

"He's nothing to me," Alexander says, his eyes bright. You do not like it when Alexander drinks. Sometimes Dionysus makes Alexander merry, but other times he grows morose or angry. But it doesn't happen anymore without the drink. You slink carefully towards him, not knowing if he will rebuff you. You did not move like this in Greece. You only had to say the words with an earnest if shy smile and it would be done. But this is Persia. There is another that sleeps in Alexander's room, sometimes in Alexander's bed, and you have right to be hesitant.

"Is anyone anything to you?" You tease with an indulgent smile. "Only your dreams, perhaps." You remember the boy who used to sleep on your shoulder out in the field. The boy who used to be still enough for you to tell him about once upon a times and a thousand indiscretions that felt as great as sins to you, although any other would laugh. Alexander was different then. He had time for your secrets, now, you are not sure if he even has time for this. 

"Hephaistion," Alexander mumbles. He puts down his cup and draws you close, leans his head against your stomach. He does not respond to your last comment, but to the one before it. Under the influence of the wine, Alexander's mind lags behind his tongue like an out-of-breath runner. "You are right of course. I lost my temper."

You run the back of your fingers through his hair and he shifts in a way that makes your heart beat faster. You caress his cheek and he murmurs something else into your belly. It is smooth and slow. The tone is all you need to know. The oil lamp is extinguished and the boy that sleeps mostly, but not always at the foot of Alexander's bed, does not sleep in Alexander's room this night.

In the morning, Alexander sighs against you.

"You have cold feet." He frowns.

"What can I say?" You smirk and turn. The bed-sheet slides against your body like a cool plane of liquid glass, misted over by the rain. "I'm old now, my circulation is bad. Maybe one day, I'll no longer serve as an alternative to the brazier." You nod at the golden kiosk that holds only a few coals.

"Ah...why are you so strange in the morning?" Alexander laments. He stretches, wearing the pout of a spoiled child.

"What's that expression?" You laugh. "If I am getting older, you must be getting younger."

Alexander yawns, plods to the windows where the late sunlight paints him the white of worn idols.

You watch him and blurt out, "I'm unkind."

He turns. "Hephaistion?"

"I- " you begin. The door creaks and Bagoas arrives. You know it is time for you to go. Alexander greets the boy and you slip out, their voices treading on your heels in fainter echoes until there is nothing. Alexander did not hold you back, merely brushed the back of his palm against your arm, making it tingle. In Greece it would have been different. In Persia, Alexander never tells you to leave, but he never asks you to stay. You walk to your rooms, stare out into the courtyard where an exotic tree blooms.

Bagoas' laughter lingers in your mind. You do not know the voice that is crying. 

It's leaves are crimson.


End file.
